1. Field
The following description relates to management of virtual cards stored on mobile devices.
2. Discussion of the Background
With the advent of advancing mobile technology, more features have been integrated into mobile devices. From GPS applications to mobile office products, mobile devices, such as mobile communicative terminals, have practically become a necessity for everyday needs. In order to further utilize mobile technology to better cater to a user's daily requirements, attempts have been made to provide for a mobile financial management system to replace conventional physical wallets. Specifically, this mobile wallet functionality was sought to be realized through provisioning of card issuer's account information directly into a secure element (SE) of the mobile device equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) chipset. The SE may be a smart card chip capable of storing multiple applications, including of account specific information that may not be easily accessed by external parties. The model mobile wallet application may have the same composition as a conventional wallet, which may contain payment cards, member cards, transportation cards, and loyalty cards.
Further, to make the wallet function more convenient to the owners of the mobile device, a method of providing contactless payment (NFC-based applications) through provisioning account specific information within the secure domain of the mobile device's SE has been provided. More specifically, user financial credentials, such as credit card numbers, may be provisioned onto mobile devices equipped with Near Field Communication chipset (NFC enabled) to make payments. Once the user financial credentials have been provisioned onto the NFC enabled mobile device, the provisioned NFC enabled device may transfer information or make payments to another NFC compatible device by coming near within a few centimeters of one another without physically contacting each other. This type of technology is conventionally referred to as “contactless” technology and a payment made with this technology is referred to as “contactless” payment.
However, regardless of benefits that may be obtained through integrating wallet functionality into mobile device, prevailing technology still lacks an effective means to manage various payment applets residing within the mobile device.
With the advent of NFC-based contactless payment applications, users were provided a way to select a contactless payment applet (i.e., contactless payment virtual card) from various contactless payment applets stored in the mobile device for payment at corresponding point-of-sale (POS) devices. However, while these contactless payment applets may be selected to make a purchase, the management of payment applets may be limited. For example, a user may be limited to view the contactless payment applets stored in the user's mobile device when interacting with a POS device. Further, even if the user is able to view the various contactless payment applets stored in the mobile device with or without the POS device, the user may be unable to view the details related to the contactless payment applets (e.g., account number, expiration date, security code, balance and the like). Accordingly, users may be unable to effectively manage or keep track of various contactless payment applets stored in their respective mobile devices.
Typically, the contactless card applets may be stored within a specific compartment, or a secured domain, of the SE to be accessed during an interaction with the POS device. Moreover, even when such payment applications are accessed, since these applications are managed through industry standard Payment Procedure Secure Elements (PPSE) that only provide for application identification (ID) and label, a limited generic description may be provided to the user. Accordingly, the user may be unable to view any account specific information stored within the SE or manage such applications with or without the use of POS equipment.
Another limitation of current mobile wallet applications is the lack of support providing for such technology. With such focus on mobile commerce, many competing service providers seek delivering their services to the users. However, such services may be offered to the users without regard to the mobile device capabilities or mobile service providers utilized by the user. Due to technical or business compatibility, there may be numerous applications that may be inapplicable to the user's individual attributes (e.g., bank membership, mobile service provider, manufacturer of a mobile device owned by the user, type of secure element installed in the mobile device, operating system of the mobile device, and the like). Accordingly, users may often be bombarded with various applications that may be inapplicable to the user, making the process more difficult than necessary.
Another issue with the current mobile wallet application is its ability to update its information. As various service providers operate independently from one another, when an update is required by a particular service provider, each individual application is typically updated separately. Such inefficiency may dissuade users from obtaining crucial updates that may be necessary to a particular application.